Generation Y – are you ready to work?

As my 38^th birthday approaches, I realize that the past 5 years has given me a tremendous amount of life experience and business knowledge.  I am finally getting into a groove and feel comfortable with my role in life.  While I celebrate that accomplishment, I am also somewhat disturbed with the next generation.

 

First of all, I would like to exclude my current co-workers from these thoughts.  Right now, I have 7 highly capable and motivated people under the age of 21.  For them, I am very appreciative of the hard work and passion they bring.

What I want to discuss, however, is the others who have come and gone.   I have noticed some trends over the past few years that I have trouble with.  I am unsure of what the solution is, but hopefully there is a solution out there somewhere…

 

I can boil the tendencies down to 3 items: motivation, work ethic and entitlement.

Motivation:

Showing up – Does it really take that much effort to show up for work?

Finding work – Is it really necessary to hold your hand for each task?

Staying focused – Do you really need a break after a half hour?

Goofing off – Do you really need to find humor in everything you do?

Socialization – Can you spend some time on a task without making it a social event?

Sitting down – Are you motivated enough to actually stand up while you work?

Work Ethic:

Pace of work – Yes, you can get a lot done in 5 minutes, but can you keep it up for 2 hours? 4 hours?

Quality of work – Can you care enough about your work that you are proud of it?

Ability – Do you know how to work?  Or just how to text?

Entitlement:

Breaks – Do you need a break every half hour?  Or hour?

Pay – Can you begin at a starting wage, or do you already deserve what everyone else is making?

Advancement – Once you master a task, can you stick with it a while before thinking you should be doing your supervisor’s job?

Pay #2 – Do you deserve the pay of someone who has been working longer than yourself?

 

So here is my $.02 worth of advice to the next generation of workers.  Show up, do your job well, work hard and expect less.  There is opportunity in this world if you are able to learn these traits.  You might not get rich by the age of 25, but you will have the skills necessary to succeed later in life.

 

Maybe I am idealistic and getting old and crusty, but really, has our society changed that much that the younger generation doesn’t have a clue?  I am a fan of having fun.  I am willing to provide a special place to work.  I am willing to be generous and forgiving.  All I ask in return is to be flexible, motivated and hard working.  My thanks go out to Jeremy, Ryan, Justin K., Justin M., Erin, Hilary and Donna for being just that.  Hopefully others in your generation can follow by example.

 

Exposed! How merchants carry the load in fraud protection.

Passion runs deep for entrepreneurs.  I am no exception…especially when I feel I have been a victim of crime.  Although internet fraud is a crime, it is hard to trace and hard to prosecute.  This article is not aimed at the crook who steals from merchants, but more at the dysfunctional system that is in place to process transactions.  Is this system more at fault than the person who fraudulently uses a credit card?  You can decide.  Here is my latest story.

In June, we received an order for 15-20 plaques – including shipping the total for the order was $450ish.  The billing address and shipping address did not match, but the last name did.  This is a common occurrence for us.  The engraving information was odd, so per our protocol, I called the issuing card company to verify the legitimacy of the card.  The fraud department of the card company verified the address and was dumbfounded when I asked to call the cardholder to ask them if they placed the order.  Nobody answered the cardholder’s phone (if they even made the call) and the fraud department told me that the transaction was fine and to go ahead and ship their order and charge their card.  Needless to say, 3 weeks later, we received a ‘chargeback’ or notice that the cardholder was disputing the charge.  I called the fraud department back and confronted them on why they said the charge was OK.  Their response was vague and they told me their responsibility was to protect the cardholder.

So who is protecting the merchant?

After realizing I would get nowhere with the cardholder’s credit card processor, I called my own processor.  These are the people who we pay 2-3% of each transaction.  I thought there would be some sort of process that if the merchant checked and double checked the authenticity of the credit card, there would be some sort of backup insurance to protect the merchant.  Although very friendly and understanding, the conversation yielded the end result that they have no liability either.

So I ask the question, who is holding the liability?

Is it the cardholder?  No…no matter what they do, they dispute the charge and don’t have to pay.

Is it Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover? No, they simply process the transaction and play middle man in disputes.

My logic brings me to this conclusion…The cardholder passes blame to the credit card company.  They pass blame onto the merchant.  The merchant gets screwed.

 

In closing, I would like to give a giant, you are a loser shout out to the person who used Ms. Crawford’s credit card.  This person signed for the package at the address of 3279 BELLE GROVE, Memphis, TN, 38115.  The Miss Black Continental Newcomer or Mr. Black Continental Newcomer organization should be ashamed there are people out there using stolen cards to promote your group.

What is meaningful recognition?

Our company is about providing meaningful recognition. Often I am faced with the question of “what EXACTLY IS meaningful recognition.” For me, it is the expression of a heartfelt acknowledgement of what someone else has done. While we can only scratch the surface of telling the countless stories that define the term, I am going to start a series of posts that begin to shed light on the importance of meaningful recognition. I welcome your thoughts and feedback in this section. While I attempt to focus on a few of the stories I see, please feel free to share your stories as well.

Doing right by the Planet - Our partnership with PSE and Light Doctor

As promised, we are acting on our environmental stewardship.  The latest item now complete is our lighting retrofit.  We partnered with the Light Doctor (Mountlake Terrace, WA) and Puget Sound Energy to dramatically cut our lighting cost to our 5000 square foot facility.  I am hopeful that our energy usage from lighting will be cut by 2/3!  That is right; our energy use from lighting will be 1/3 of what it was just a few days ago!  Talk about a decrease in carbon footprint!

Initially, both myself and landlord were concerned about the color and amount of light that we would get out of the change, but check out the pictures below.  They are taken without a flash and are unedited.

Display area before                                                           Display area after

 

Conference room before                            Conference room after

 

I want to personally thank Willy of the Light Doctor for his patience and great service as well as Lee from Puget Sound Energy for his commitment to the environment and financial subsidy to make this project happen.

I think we have significantly improved our lighting, saved energy, and helped the environment at the same time.  To me, that is part of what being the leader of meaningful recognition is all about!

What is the ‘Awards Guru’ doing to change?

Don’t you love referring to yourself in the 3rd person?  As you can image, the ‘Awards Guru’ name is a title - it is not meant to pump up my ego or to make myself look more important to others.  To me, it keeps me centered on the fact that, yes, I am in the awards industry, and yes, I do know quite a bit about awards and recogntion.  Everything?  Not by a long-shot!

To share what is going on in my life to improve my knowledge base, here are a couple of groups that I am involved with:

recognition.org - I am completing my certification in April to be a CRP (Certified Recognition Professional).  I feel this is a great foundation of understanding the essentials of awards programs and their benefits.

ara.org - I am volunteering to be on the education committee for the Awards and Recognition Association.  I feel like there is improvement that can occur in this organization.  My strongest passion is around improving the education of awards and recognition vendors.

Entrepreneurs Association (EO) - Seattle - I will be serving on the EO Seattle board from July 1, 2008 for a 2 year term.  For me, the EO organization fuels my entrepreneurial spirit and helps me maintain a decent work/life balance.

 The new trophies.org.  Ever heard of social entrepreneurship?  Look for good things to come from the new and improved trophies.org in the future!

Hopefully through my energy, desire and expanding knowledge, I will be a voice of positive change for the recognition industry.  I feel like the journey is just beginning…

Leading the Awards Industry through Environmental Change

I will be the first to admit.  Our environmental footprint has been poor in the past.

That is changing in a big way.

Through the hard work of Anne and Janice, our resident experts on change, we are poised to make some great steps towards being more environmentally friendly.

I will spare you the details, but our program will focus on:

1) Waste management and recycling.

2) Energy and water consumption - gas, electricity and water.

3) Our use of environmentally friendly materials.

4) Requesting vendors to use different packaging.

 This year will be spent identifying areas of improvement as well as implementing change.  We will then focus on communicating our successes and influencing others.  Our commitment is to improve and we are on our way.

Does your Awards Supplier have Site Search?

Today we went live with site search on the trophies2go.com home page.  It is a very interactive tool designed to quickly and efficiently find the product you are looking for.  The user starts with a keyword, category or unique characteristic for their award.  They type it in to the search box in the upper-right hand corner of our site and click the ‘Go’ button.  Our site reveals products with those characteristics and also allows the user to refine the search by category, material, price, size or several other factors.  The results are given in either a grid or list format below the criteria.  The user can then resort the results by popularity or price. 

This new feature is provided by Nextopia.  If you have a moment, please try it out and let me know what you think!

As described earlier, you can find it on the trophies2go.com home page in the upper right hand corner.  In the next few weeks, we will also be adding site search to our smaller sites as well.

Thanks, Jeff

Coming in 2008

As the New Year approaches, there are many new features that are in our pipeline to improve our customers’ online experience.  The purpose of this article is to give a sneak peek of these improvements.

• On all 9 of our sites (trophies2go.com, issaquahtrophy.com, pokertrophies.com, cheapbaseballtrophies.com, cheapbasketballtrophies.com, cheapgolftrophies.com, cheaphockeytrophies.com, cheapsoccertrophies.com and cheapfootballtrophies.com), we will be implementing ‘Site Search’.  This will give the user quick access to all of our products, the ability to refine the search by several product attributes and help with misspellings.
• Improved product descriptions.  We will be altering all of our product descriptions to be more descriptive and give the user a better mental picture of the product.
• Product reviews.  We will be adding the ability for customers who purchase products to review them.  This will give prospective new customers another means of ensuring their product selection is right for them.
• Improved product detail page.   We will be altering our product detail page to me more efficient.  We will add product attributes, product reviews and alter the engraving input to be on this page instead of a pop-up window.
• Improved check-out process.  We will be re-engineering the checkout process to be more compact and efficient.  This will help with the speed in which it takes to check-out.  We will also be adding a guest-shopper feature that will also assist those who want to be one-time buyers.
• Improved transactional emails.  After our customers place an order, the order confirmation email, order shipped email and post-order email asking for feedback will be improved.
• And Much More!  If we told you everything we were up to, how could we surprise you?  Long story short, look for great things from us in 2008!

As we grow, our pledge is to continually improve our systems to make your awards purchase painless and worry-free.  Our goal is to be the best in the industry.  These changes will be a great step in continuing our improvement and our customers’ user experience.

Current trends in the awards industry

Change has typically occurred slowly in the awards industry.  I feel that there are several aspects of my business that are changing more rapidly than they have in the past, yet some remain the same.

 

We are in the midst of change with regards to products, wholesalers and the internet.  Awards products used to be designed, manufactured and marketed in the USA.  Many of the producers now design their products in the states and have them fabricated overseas.  This has spawned some really creative products and minimized the effect of increased raw material and labor costs.  Because of the offshore production, wholesalers have needed to adapt their business model to accept the difficulties of seasonal demand.  They also have to speculate on which new products will be successful and order an ample supply to meet their customer’s needs.  The burden of this issue has been placed directly on the wholesalers, yet the retailers and, in turn the end user, inevitably pay the price through product shortages and the carrying cost of excess inventory.  Trial and error as well as technology will eventually cure the issues now being faced with the product supply chain.

The internet is also changing the awards industry.  Although most of the purchases are still being completed by brick and mortar stores, there is definitely a trend toward more ecommerce transactions.  Whether the customer uses the internet for price comparisons, information, or actually purchasing awards, my feeling is that the internet will continue to be the growth point of the industry.  I am proud to be one of the leaders in making this happen and am committed to increasing the customer’s experience with regards to the internet awards industry.

Some things in the industry also remain the same or are stale.  The Awards and Recognition Association as well as most of the brick and mortar stores are not embracing change.  The ARA is a relatively well run association, but it caters to its membership by providing a baseline level of education and resources to its members.  It thrives in its existence because of the relatively low barriers of entry to the market.  It gives brand new or younger companies the framework of how an award business can be run, yet it doesn’t provide a community or forum for those businesses to accelerate their growth past the ‘Mom & Pop’ phase.  I will be the first to admit that this business is not easy.  It is also really hard to break through the daily grind in order take your company to the next level.  I feel that through increased motivation, better resources (through peer groups and the ARA), and a mentorship program, that positive change can occur.  I am hopeful that the award industry will continue to improve by profitably providing excellent products and services to those we serve.

The Future of the Awards Industry

Easy to get in, hard to get out.  Time and again I have seen it.  The lure of entrepreneurship and the ability to get out of your current lifeless job.  That is what drives newcomers to the Awards and Recognition industry.  50 grand and 6 months later, you are up and running.  You are excited and there is a ton of potential in your business.  For the next few years, you enthusiastically grow your business until you are tired of doing it by yourself or with partner.  The thought of hiring someone is painful as you will have to train, pay and trust them.  The workforce is tough and you cannot afford a decent wage for your workers, so you settle for a less than perfect employee.  You give them the keys to your shop a day or two a week and eventually you hear back from your customers that the business isn’t the same without you there.  You become trapped and feel you need to control every aspect of your shop.  Five years pass, you are burnt out and ready for a change.  You want to sell, yet no one will pay you what you think your business is worth.  Most in our industry continue on while some quit or sell. 

Your story may be somewhat different, but I would be willing to bet that your company has come to the point where the owners are sick and tired of some aspect and want to get out. The younger generation is not the same.  The sex appeal of easy money in other businesses and/or the lack of glamour in the Awards and Recognition industry are limiting the future entrepreneurship. The younger generation doesn’t know how to work yet they want to get paid a kings ransom for showing up.  They do not see potential in our industry or realize they will have to work extremely hard in order to be successful.

So what is next you ask?  I see 2 possible extremes.1) Industry stagnation and staleness.  The older generation hangs on.  There is not a lot of technological or product change.  In this instance, the newer generation will eventually take over, yet nothing will really change.Or2) Innovation and the quick death of the mom and pop trophy shops.  In this case, there would be a complete shock to the industry that would take 20+% of our sales away.  One or two innovators would benefit immensely from a great idea or brand or new way to recognize others.

There is also the middle ground.  That is where I stand.  I think that innovation will mean the slow and painful death of smaller shops.  Innovation may come from franchises, the internet, new products, manufacturers or distributors selling direct, or a number of other ways.  The businesses that thrive will be ones who embrace change, take risks and stay committed to the long-term success of their business.  Complacency with your sales, with your order processes, with your customers and with your life will most likely drive boredom.  This complacency is at the core of what is wrong with our industry.  Your customer’s feel it and you know it is true more often than you wish to admit.  If you are in the awards industry and don’t care about your business, your employees and your customers, do us all a favor, walk out the door, lock it and never look back.  Find something that you like to do.

The point of this article is not to rank on slow growing and energy-less companies, but to inspire change.  Even though there are a lot of under motivated young individuals, there are still some very bright and ambitious younger people.  These people will slowly eat away at your sales until you become frustrated and make a change for the better.  Why not make a change now?  I am certain there are things that you can change with your business, your attitude or with your staff that will raise the bar of success for your company.  These changes will improve the amount of fun that you and your staff have and undoubtedly raise your long-term sales.

My wish for those who stay in the industry is to innovate.  I hope that we all stay focused on providing quality products and great customer service at a fair price.  If we do that, we will not only increase our own financial and emotional prosperity, but we will increase our own industry’s image for generations to come.